dead man walking

Emilie Haertsch 2-24-2020

Random House

THE FINAL WORDS of Sister Helen Prejean’s new book River of Fire are the first lines of her most famous book, Dead Man Walking. But it is a different Prejean we meet in the River pages: Not the heroic anti-death penalty activist we hear on the news, but a young Louisiana woman on fire for God.

Raised in a loving Catholic family, Prejean entered the novitiate in the strict 1950s. Her descriptions of almost military-like training—no friendships allowed, eyes modestly downcast, sinners wearing vices written on cards around their necks—made me grateful I never became a nun. Once Prejean took her final vows, however, she only had a few years to adjust to the restrictive life before the Catholic Church experienced the seismic shift of the Second Vatican Council.

Prejean makes this transformative time come alive, even relaying how two men almost came to blows over the changes at a parish discussion group she facilitated. Vatican II meant no more Latin Mass or memorization of the catechism. Catholics were now expected to be truly educated about their faith and motivated more by love than fear.

Phil Haslanger 5-01-2014
Dead Man Walking play performed in 2002, Photo by creighton_ccas / Flickr.com

Dead Man Walking play performed in 2002, Photo by creighton_ccas / Flickr.com

The botched execution of Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma on Tuesday has refocused the nation on the inherent contradictions in the death penalty. But here in Wisconsin last week, an opera helped focus the attention of one community on the many human issues woven into the debate over crime and punishment.

In real life at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, a mix of lethal drugs injected into the body of Lockett caused seizures rather than immediate death. On stage in the opera version of Dead Man Walking, the drug machine clicks, hums, and whirrs with efficiency, leaving the fictional character Joe DerRocher dead on the stage.

Dead Man Walking — the book by Sr. Helen Prejean about her work with prisoners on death row and the families of their victims — became an award-winning movie in the mid-1990s starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn. It was recreated as an opera in 2000 and since then has played in 40 cities.

What happened in Madison, Wis., last week was more than the presentation of an opera. It was the culmination of six weeks of some 20 events engaging about 1,500 community members in discussion of many facets of the criminal justice system. The two performances of the opera itself drew about 3,000 people. It was a classic example of art engaging life.

Capital punishment itself is not so much of an issue in Wisconsin – the state has banned it since 1853. But Wisconsin does have the highest rate of black male incarceration in the nation. Its prison system tilts far more toward punishment than toward treatment and rehabilitation. It imprisons twice as many people as its neighboring and demographically similar state of Minnesota.

Aaron Taylor 8-23-2010
In the film "Dead Man Walking", shortly before Matthew Poncelet (played by Sean Penn) is executed, there's a scene where Poncelet confesses his crime of rape and murder.